Is there a way we can conduct societies without markets? J
I think it's possible to have a market economy without "profits".
In fact, I think that such an economy is a logical and inevitable consequence of the direct connections of the Internet.
And from there, maybe in a generation or two, we may move to a "gift economy". "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
I don't think profit itself is the problem, anymore than a market economy is a problem, or even share-capitalism is a problem. The problem in all of these systems is 3rd party parasitism, and the extent to which the they encourage this aspect to the detriment of the original trade.
My view is that anglo-disease is about prioritising 3rd party parasitism to the extent that it became the main focus of all trading and the actual transactors were bled to death. keep to the Fen Causeway
then some bright spark invented money as a unit of exchange in complex barter societies.
What money achieved was not so much a "unit of exchange" but a "split barter" transaction with a time delay between the two parts of a barter transaction.
While a value unit or unit of exchange is implicit as a reference in a monetary transaction, it need not be money.
Wherever you have a barter system (eg the Swiss WIR or a proprietary system, like Bartercard) with built in credit, then the result is a monetary system.
Helen:
The problem in all of these systems is 3rd party parasitism
"Profit" and "share capitalism" are integral to Anglo Disease "finance capitalism" and constitute an unnecessary overlay on the "real" productive economy.
The key point about a "Peer to Peer" economy is that the "3rd party parasites" are cut out, or "dis-intermediated" in the jargon, and with them go not only "for profit" share capitalism, but also credit intermediaries aka banks as middlemen...... "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
Well, a market economy without profit is probably how we started out after we stopped being hunter gatherers. That was barter, then some bright spark invented money as a unit of exchange in complex barter societies.
There's not much to prove that. Early agricultural societies were at least as likely to depend on gift economies, some sorts of centralised planning, or plunder, as means of economic organisation and exchange. The narrative of the inevitability of barter then currencies is just a narrative. Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
I don't have a problem, nec. with profits. It's profits made by gambling and what is done with those profits I have a serious issue with. "Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.
